We know that X-Men: Dark Phoenix, writer/producer Simon Kinberg‘s directorial debut, will primarily be about Sophie Turner’s young Jean Grey. (It’d be super weird if they chose that title and it didn’t focus on Jean.) But this is an X-Men movie, and that means, historically speaking, it needs an expansive cast of characters that might end up with decent supporting roles or, just as likely, could be little more than glorified extras.

In April of 2016, about a month before X-Men: Apocalypse hit theaters, actress Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones) tweeted a photo of her character, Jean Grey, at a mall with Scott Summers, aka Cyclops (Tye Sheridan). They were admiring the album cover of Dazzler, a mutant singer with the ability to create displays of light and energy who hadn’t appeared on screen in any X-Men movie up to that point. That scene in the mall ended up being cut from the film, but a new report indicates that Dazzler is going to appear in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, the new X-Men sequel that will be directed by Simon Kinberg.

Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America are all leading up to Marvel’s big superhero team-up cross-over film The Avengers. The question is: where do you go from there? The obvious answer is The Avengers 2. The less obvious answer is Ant-Man.

But then what? How do you top that? Well, you don’t. You aim smaller.

CHUD has learned that Marvel Studios has been meeting with writers and directors for some of their smaller, third and fourth tier characters, for example Dr. Strange, Ka-Zar, Luke Cage, Dazzler, Iron Fist and Power Pack. The plan is to make movies from these properties for relatively cheap: $20-$40 million.Read More »